This is our first post about a European destination and I decided to start with a unique destination that has a special place in our hearts and is definitely an underrated travel destination in Europe, yes it’s Portugal.
We’ve been to Portugal twice now and definitely will get back there as soon as we can. There’s so much to see and experience which is definitely unique to Portugal and can not be found anywhere else. Stunning Portuguese architecture with blue and white tiles, the best wines and ports and the amazing Portuguese classic music called Fado are just a few on the list.
The top of the list for us and especially Amir, is the Lusitano horses. Portugal is where these beauties are bred, originally from the same breed that Andalusian horses in Spain are from and being used centuries ago originally as war horses.
In 21st century though, both Andalusian and Lusitano horses are famous for their beauty, art performances and dressage competitions. In Spain, bull fighting with Spanish horses is still on trend too especially in south Spain.
Well, the focus of our second trip to Portugal was Lusitano horses but this time, we decided to get there during the annual Lusitano horse fair in early November. This post is dedicated to the Golega horse festival in Portugal.
Golega, Capital of the Portuguese Lusitano:
Well, before starting with the festival, let’s have a quick look at the map and see where Golega is located and even where Portugal sits in the European continent. As you can see below, Portugal sits right on the western south of Europe, next to Atlantic Ocean, from where Portuguese Colonial Empire stretched its territory to Southern America, north and south of Africa, Indian subcontinent and even parts of south eastern Asia. Current Portugal is sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and its only neighbor, Spain, with its major cities, Lisbon and Porto located next to the Atlantic Ocean.
From Lisbon to Seville in Andalucía, Spain, it’s only few hours of bus ride. And it won’t take much longer to get to Gibraltar Strait and Morocco in the African continent. Golega is located in Santarem region, only an hour and a half drive north and inland from Lisbon International airport. It’s a small town with not much of infrastructure for the number of tourists getting there in November for the annual Lusitano horse festival.
How We Ended Up in Portugal:
Just before getting into details of our trip, let’s remind you that we travelled to Portugal almost four years ago in November 2016, in 2020 unfortunately we are still in lock down and we haven’t travelled anywhere since December last year. That’s why I got finally time to document our previous trips including this one 🙂
2016 was a rough year to some extent for us. We moved to New Zealand in 2014 and over the following two years, we had to work hard to establish ourselves in a new country and in the meantime, Amir had a bad knee injurie while skiing which immobilized us for almost a year with not much activities. Late July 2016, I felt really exhausted from work and just wanted to get out of the daily life and travel overseas. I guess before living in New Zealand, no one has the real idea on how hard and expensive it is to travel to anywhere else from New Zealand.
After a short discussion with Amir, I decided to give myself a break and go on a short two week trip to Nepal with one of my best friend Sarvenaz who was living in Iran and I haven’t met her for over two years. Amir wasn’t two sure of a long trip with his recently recovered knee so I left for Nepal on my own. While I was in Nepal, Amir just felt the urge that he needs to get somewhere to lift up him mood too and called me one night and said , we should go to Golega this November! Golega was on his wish list since his love affair with Lusitano horses started and for some reason we never managed to get to Portugal on time to get there. As soon as I got back from Nepal, we started planning for a month trip in Italy and Portugal for Late October, early November the same year.
What You Need to Know Before Travelling to Golega:
As mentioned earlier, Golega is a tiny little city with the population as low as 5000 and it definitely is not well equipped with infrastructure to accommodate the big number of tourists travelling to Golega for a short period of a week so finding an accommodation is the first challenge. I found a lovely old place in a small village called Vargos, half an hour drive from Golega and booked it 3 month before our trip. After getting to Golega, we realized that how lucky we were that we couldn’t book a accommodation in the Golega township. Over the period of a week and during the festival, Golega is live all the way from mid night till early morning and it’s impossible to sleep in town. On the contrary, driving from Vargos to Golega was stunning, passing through the orchards and olive trees without much of a traffic was a blessing. Accommodation is not cheap though. Se have spent 100 Euro per night for the accommodation which is by far the most expensive accommodation that we paid for in Portugal and Italy.
If someone is keen to get to Golega just for a day, then a train ride from Lisbon is perhaps the best option but we were committed to go to Golega everyday for a week. Once accommodation was sorted, we booked our flight tickets and booked a small rental car from Lisbon airport as using the public transportation was not an option to travel between small villages in rural Portugal. From Rome to Lisbon is a two hours flight. We booked our flights with TAP, Portugal air which we used before in 2009 and were happy with it.
The other important thing to remember is packing warm cloth for Golega. Southern Spain and Portugal are not necessarily cold in November and just a light layer of warm cloth is more than enough but Golega was getting super cold during the night especially because all the activities for the festivals and even the restaurants were in open air, after few hours staying outside, I could hardly feel my fingers and toes!
Golega Lusitano Horse Festival:
Well finally let’s get into the horse festival and how it feels being there. I’d rather share more photos than describing the vibe but generally, there’s a big arena in the middle of the town, where everyone with a horse is allowed to go around the arena with their horses or horse carriages. Spectators where normally standing around the arena fences and observe the horses and can occasionally stop the a rider and ask about the horse breed and possibly the price if they are interested in buying.
Then the other layer of buildings around the arena were dedicated to the breeders buildings and some of their indoor arenas. The reason that this festival is held in Golega is because the major Lusitano horse breeders are originally from this small town.
The first interesting this about the fair to me was the variety of the horse riders. Riders were varied from few years old kids to 70 years old women. The second interesting part was the fact that pretty much everyone were dressed in their traditional costumes and it felt like we travelled few centuries back especially because the cars were not allowed in town and lots of horse carriages were used for transportation. Let’s have a look at some of the festival scenes together.
The same scenes were going on usually from mid day till late at night or possibly early in the morning, we never stayed long enough to see. The first day was a little bit hard to find our way into the town and figure out where is the safest and easiest to park our car in the outskirt of city center as all cars are banned in central area and we weren’t sure how to drive back late at night to another small town/village where we had our accommodation but at around 8:00 pm pretty much every one started to drink including the horse riders!
After spending few days in Golega from mid day till late at night, we started to blend in the festival routines and even had our favorite horses and riders, favorite bar and even restaurant. I think that’s a good thing about staying somewhere long enough to understand the daily routines there and start to establish your daily routine before moving forward while travelling. Our accommodation was stunning as well, definitely worth every Euro we paid for it, an interesting heritage building which was passed on generation to generation and each morning we were lucky enough to have freshly baked bread with olive oil from the neighboring olive trees and goat cheese plus homemade jam and butter to keep up full for at least half a day. Let’s have a look at foods in Golega before moving on to horses.
Lusitano horse festival is a big shopping ground more than anything else. Everyone interested in buying a Lusitano horse from across the world are coming to find their favorite breeder to buy a horse from in the festival or start negotiating on a horse. Over years Lusitano horses are more recognized and the prices for a good Lusitano horse rose significantly at least comparing few years back in 2009 that we were looking to buy one.
Getting back to the vibe at Golega, every afternoon, as the arena started to dry out and more riders were joining the scene, the air started to get dusty and the smell of horses, dust and roasted chestnuts were filling the air and creating an interesting scene especially closer to the sunset. And then as soon as the last rays of lights disappeared on the horizon, the city vibe was changing with Portuguese music was starting to play live and more and more families were joining the crowd and small stalls with everything on offer were packed with customers bargaining on their favorite goods.
Being in Golega was a unique experience. Especially at nights, were back alleys were filled with the aroma of grilled meat, roasted chestnut , smoke, horse poo and beer and you could hear the Portuguese song being played in the distance while the voice of stall owners shouting in Portuguese to sell their products is mixed up with the sounds of horses walking on cobblestone alleys of Golega. It definitely creates a surreal vibe, like you are lost somewhere between past and the future.
While we were staying in Vargos and during the course of the festival, we decided to take a day off and visit a local monastery in Vargos and take a quick train ride to visit Lisbon. Lisbon is an amazing city, definitely underrated amongst other European big cities in terms of beauty and tourist attractions. If you haven’t been to Lisbon yet, then perhaps it’s the time to plan for a visit.
And finally we got to our last day in Golega and the farewell ceremony day of the festival. Amir managed to find his dressage mentor from our last visit in Portugal. He told us that there will be a an amazing show later at night with live Fado music and famous dressage horses shows including his own that we shouldn’t miss. Over the course of the festival, we found a lovely friend from Quebec, Canada. She backpacked to Portugal just to see the Lusitanos, she was living in a ranch with her mom and sisters and they happened to have one mixed bread Lusitano with the rest of their native American horse breeds and they started to love it. We usually gave her a ride to her backpacker hostel in the mornings and drove her back late at nights. We managed to find her and told her about the night. Three of us spent the rest of the evening together and enjoyed the show before saying goodbye to each other and leave Golega for good.
I hope that I managed to share the experience with you in the way that you feel it the way we did. It’s never easy especially in English as it is not our first language. I’m not going to write much about Portugal or Italy at the moment because I feel that there are lots of content available about travelling in Europe. Golega was slightly different, i couldn’t find much about it and really wanted to share this experience with you all.
From here I will probably start writing about our few month trip to south eastern Asia, but if you like to read more about our trips in Europe, please let me know.
Till next post, take care and enjoy the photos of our last day in Golega below 🙂
akhodaparast
December 9, 2020 at 7:03amThanks Aubrie, glad to hear that it was useful 🙂
akhodaparast
December 9, 2020 at 7:04amGlad to hear that you liked it. Thanks for your kind comment 🙂